BARCELONA — Huawei came back to Mobile World Congress this year in a big way. The company took over Hall 1 of the Fira Gran Via, and its public relations team made a valiant effort to reach out to the international press after more than four years of relative quiet.
Beginning in 2019, the U.S. government shook the company when it claimed that Huawei’s telecom equipment posed a security risk because of its close ties to China’s authoritarian government. The U.S. ordered its telecom operators to stop using Huawei equipment, and it was able to convince many other countries to follow its lead. For the record, Huawei has always vehemently denied that its equipment poses any security threat.
During the intervening four years, of course, the world also experienced the Covid pandemic, causing even more isolation for Huawei.
But now, the company is making an effort to move on. It’s CEO Eric Xu recently said, “In 2022, we successfully pulled ourselves out of crisis mode.” He added that “U.S. restrictions are now our new normal.”
In fact, the company has established relationships with a number of carriers around the world. See the list below of the carriers exhibiting at its MWC booth this week. **Note - After this story was published Huawei said there were actually 15 carriers exhibiting rather than 14, and some of the companies exhibiting had changed prior to the MWC event.
China - China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom
Latin America - Telecom Argentina, Claro in Brasil
Asia Pacific - True and AIS from Thailand; HKT from Hong Kong
Africa - Safaricom and Ethio Telecom
Middle East - Zain and STC in Saudi Arabia; and Etisalat by e& in UAE
Europe - Telefonica
Turkey - Turkcell
This week, Fierce Wireless attempted to catch up with Huawei, both from a technical perspective as well as a business perspective. At a press briefing, we asked Paul Scanlan, president advisor for Huawei’s Carrier Business Group, what the company’s biggest markets are outside of China.
Rather than providing a direct answer, Scanlan said, “the rest of the world.” He said Huawei has the technical capability to sell to every single country that has allocated spectrum in the 3.2 GHz range and up. “Whether customers have demand depends on the geography and the operator.”
In the press briefing Scanlan said, “We’ve had a disconnect for a couple of years.” While the international press might argue that the company still has a disconnect in how it communicates, Scanlan attributed the disconnect to “an education problem.” But it was unclear who needs to be educated and about what.
Another reporter questioned Scanlan about trust. He said Huawei currently has 741 customers, so that’s indicative that many operators do trust the company. He said, anecdotally, that a couple of customers have told him, ‘We’re really sorry that we’ve been pushed into this area where we can’t buy your 5G, but we want to maintain the relationship.’”
Huawei’s technology
The company would much rather talk about its technology than to talk about geopolitical issues and government. But it’s often hard to correlate its technology with similar tech from other parts of the world because Huawei likes to use different nomenclature.
For instance, Huawei likes to talk about 5.5G, which seems to be akin to 5G Advanced — the preferred nomenclature of the 3GPP. 5G Advanced is the 3GPP's named for its Release 18, which is slated for year-end 2024.
The company is also doing similar things as its competitors such as Ericsson and Nokia, including private wireless and fixed wireless access.
Based on information gleaned from a tour of Huawei’s booth at MWC, the company is doing 5G private wireless for Hungary’s East-West Gate railway project.
Huawei also issued a slew of press releases coinciding with the event this week, including this sampling:
The showcase of 10 new energy-efficient wireless network products and solutions for 5G.
The announcement of 3 new optical network solutions to support 5G.
The release of software, which accommodates both VMs and containers within a single architecture.
The launch of its Eco series antennas that reduce site power consumption and improve network energy efficiency.